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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26637793">Choices</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter'>JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MacGyver (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>107 AU, Can Opener, Gen, M/M, Prison</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:27:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26637793</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mac knows what guys in his position do. Pick one person to make a deal with, someone who will keep everyone else off their backs because they want them all to themselves. It’s the perfect chance to get closer to El Noche with a believable excuse. It’s just that what he has to do...is more than he can make himself accept.</p><p>He's supposed to get into bed with the man metaphorically. Not literally. </p><p>But if he doesn’t, he has no choice in the matter at all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Dalton &amp; Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Riley Davis &amp; Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Choices</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There’s only one thing Riley didn’t tell him in detail about prison. Presumably because it hadn’t fallen into the realm of her experience.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In her world, alliances had been made based on mutual benefits of pretty tangible sorts. Trading shifts on the worse work details. Shared contraband like cigarettes or razors. Forming partnerships with the people who were least likely to shank you and most likely to be able to keep you from getting shanked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For all her nightmares, Riley’s world was full of a lot of people just trying to get by who were leaning on each other. From what Mac understood, she learned that a lot of them were like her. Not all that hardened. Just unfortunate. She’d been lucky to get on the good side of a woman named LaToya, she said, someone who had a rep for being in for murder, and held onto the prestige and untouchability it offered. But Riley had learned later that the charge had been because LaToya had killed her pimp when he tried to force a younger teenager into the business. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“She wasn’t a bad person. Wanted to protect anyone she could.”</span>
  </em>
  <span> It was clear she was someone Riley had respected. And someone, Mac thinks, who had a lot of influence on her. They’ve run very few ops with traffickers, but Riley’s always the first to comfort the victims. She knows what to say. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>While her life hadn’t been easy by any means, what it had lacked was one thing that Mac sees all too much of here. Yes, some favors are paid for in smuggled drugs and homemade shivs. But those are usually one-offs. The kind of alliance Mac needs to make tends to be sealed with a little more than a playground pricked-finger blood oath.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t seem to sell El Noche on an escape plan. The man has it good in here. He’s practically a king. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Los Manos Sangrientas </span>
  </em>
  <span>have been giving him and his men some trouble, but Mac did too good a job dealing with them in the laundry room when they tried to catch El Noche alone one day. Their leader got caught, still groggy, by the guards and is in solitary for two months. And without him, the other gang members won’t strike. So things have settled into an uneasy rhythm of sameness. Mac’s been here for three weeks and almost died six times. Almost been assaulted over twenty. He’s been able to fight them off, but he’s not sure how much longer that will last. He got food poisoning from their meal a week ago, and he still can’t eat much. He’s getting weaker, and he’s afraid the next time someone comes for him, even his skills won’t be a match. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows what guys in his position do. Pick one person to make a deal with, someone who will keep everyone else off their backs because they want them all to themselves. It’s the perfect chance to get closer to El Noche with a believable excuse. It’s just that what he has to do...is more than he can make himself accept. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re supposed to get into bed with him metaphorically. Not literally.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>But if he doesn’t, he has no choice in the matter at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>How sick is it that my choices come down to deciding on the person I want to hand myself over to, or waiting for someone to decide they want </span>
  </em>
  <span>me</span>
  <em>
    <span>?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He needs to do something, and do it soon. Either scrub the op or do what it takes to get El Noche. And he can’t get the images of scorched porch railings and the way Patty’s voice quivered when she talked about the child victims, out of his head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t let El Noche’s cartel continue to terrorize people. So he has to do whatever it takes.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That’s above and beyond what anyone has a right to ask of you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But is it? He’s agreed to a job he knows could take his </span>
  <em>
    <span>life.</span>
  </em>
  <span> This isn’t that bad, in the grand scheme of things. Right?</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This isn’t the same as torture, as much as you’d like to tell yourself that. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But at least he’ll live.</span>
</p><p><em><span>Maybe. He could be carrying a disease. It’s not like you can just ask your partner to get tested first in here.</span></em> <em><span>You could end up benched for the rest of your career. Or worse, it could kill you.</span></em></p><p>
  <span>There’s a million ways to die in this job, and it’s for a good reason. He has to do something. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>So you’re going to go out there and sell yourself out.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>At least he knows El Noche. Marginally. And it might give him the in he needs to get the job finished. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Might?</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He’s taken bigger risks. He’s had less certainty of a plan working out. El Noche’s more likely to trust him not to be a backstabber if Mac is relying on him for protection. And he’s more likely to believe Mac wants out of here badly. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Now you just have to work up the guts to do it.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>As it turns out, it’s less of a conscious choice and more a desperate need to survive that pushes Mac over the edge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s loading one of the big washers, trying to think of the best way to broach the subject with El Noche, when he feels something around his throat. He curses his temporary lapse of situational awareness as what feels like a pant leg tightens. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not all that original. He prepares to jam an elbow into his attacker’s stomach and take them down when he feels the hand tugging at the pants he’s currently </span>
  <em>
    <span>wearing.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>This isn’t the most popular place for that kind of thing, but it’s also not unheard of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The momentary shock fades, and he prepares again to get this guy off him, but someone kicks him in the back of the knees and he crumples to the floor, gasping as the cloth is yanked away from his neck but just as rapidly used to tie his arms behind his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should be able to get out of this. He should be able to fight. But he’s still feeling weak, and he barely slept last night, trying to figure out what to do. He’s not at the top of his game.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wishes Jack was here to break this up, but Jack has yard duty today. He can’t come help Mac. No one can. Except…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop. You touch me and you answer to El Noche,” Mac manages to force out. “I’m his.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That true?” A voice hisses. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Mac can smell grime and spilled detergent on the floor. If this doesn’t work, he’s in for a bad time. And if it does...he won’t let his brain get that far.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The footsteps come back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sancola. This ass yours?” Mac feels a flush creep up his neck and cheeks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That what he told you?” El Noche’s voice is gloating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac holds his breath. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t want to hope he says yes. But I don’t want him to say no.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“This </span>
  <em>
    <span>puta’</span>
  </em>
  <span>s all mine, boys. So if you want to keep what you have, I suggest you get your hands off him now.”</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>“You know if you want to slide by on my protection, you need to pay.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s casual. Like El Noche is asking someone for a spare cigarette. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac nods, too slowly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s all. Somehow Mac kind of expected this would be more...dramatic. Threats, twisted gloating comments, maybe even getting dragged to the back of the laundry and having to let it happen right there. It’s almost worse to have to wait. Giving him time to panic, to feel like his heart’s going to beat out of his chest, to feel every muscle in his body lock up and know that’s going to be a bad thing later. To wonder if he’s made the biggest mistake of his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac spends the rest of their work shift counting down the minutes, the seconds, that he has left as </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> someone’s prison bitch. Then again, he decides, he gave that up the minute he claimed El Noche’s protection. What happens next is just going to seal the deal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Up till now, time crawled by in here at a snail’s pace. Now, it feels like seconds before they’re done. Mac wishes, for the first time, that the work day would have gone slower. And not for the last time that he’d wake up and this would all be a horrible dream. But he won’t wake up. He can’t. This is real, and this is going to happen. Because he asked for it. He almost throws up, but there’s nothing left in his stomach. He couldn’t eat at lunch, and just the thought of the nutraloaf that’s going to be waiting when he gets back to his cell turns his stomach completely upside down. His hands are shaking and he can’t fold a straight line. The station supervisor snaps at him and makes him do the work over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wonders if he could keep messing it up forever, just be stuck here in an endless loop. But he can’t. And all too soon, the heavy bell on the wall shrills, announcing that their station is done and they need to return to their cells. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>El Noche’s hand is heavy on his waist as they walk out. The guards are probably on his side, because they say nothing when El Noche follows Mac into his cell. The door closes with a heavy thud, and Mac feels it vibrate through his bones. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>El Noche looks at him with a hungry glance. “You know what to do now, </span>
  <em>
    <span>puta.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac does. He shives as he sheds the prison jumpsuit and crawls onto the bed, the thin blanket rough against his skin. He clutches his hands in the cloth and braces himself the best he can for what’s coming. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a long night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it’s over, Mac buries his face in the thin, sweat-soaked pillow and sobs.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>It’s a long two weeks. Two weeks of pain, of humiliation and degradation and misery. Two weeks of trying to convince El Noche that they’re better off outside. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two weeks of knowing everyone knows, and being unable to tell them anything. He’s only seen Jack in short moments, El Noche never far away, so they can’t talk freely. Jack knows, the agony in his eyes is enough. And if Jack knows, that means Patty and Riley know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow what hurts worst is doing this to Riley. She’s got to be having nightmares nonstop. Even if this didn’t happen to her, she knew it could have. And she knew it could happen to him. She’d warned him the best she could about something she only knew of from hearsay. And it wasn’t enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He</span>
  </em>
  <span> wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t have had to ask for protection if he’d been able to protect himself. He wasn’t strong enough. This is probably going to be his last mission. Even if by some miracle psych clears him to go back to the field, who in their right minds would trust the fate of the world to an agent who couldn’t even protect himself?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If he can’t get this op to come together, he might as well just stay here for the rest of his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then Los Manos get tired to waiting. Another attempt, this one landing El Noche in the infirmary for a shiv cut on his arm, Mac with him after taking a stab to the shoulder. And then a doctor on Los Manos’s take tries to slice El Noche’s throat with a scalpel. Mac gets them both out of there. And out of the prison itself, four hours and a fire extinguisher and a jug of cleaning chemicals later. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s just one problem. El Noche doesn’t trust him any more than he trusts anyone. WHich is how Mac ends up bleeding out from a stab wound to the stomach, in the middle of a forest in the middle of the night, wondering if anyone will find him or if this is how he dies. </span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>When he wakes up, it’s to bright lights and the too-familiar smell of the infirmary. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But at least there’s the chatter of familiar voices. He can hear Jack and Riley and Patty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes feel like there’s lead weights holding them down. He struggles one open, and that’s when everyone descends on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To his half-awake brain that’s a cue to panic. He thrashes, shoving them all away from him. Something begins beeping, and more people run up. He passes out again before they get to him.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>When he wakes up again, there’s only one person with him. Riley. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks like she hasn’t slept in a week. Her hair is all loose, not even up in a bun or ponytail, and her usually manicured fingernails are bitten down to the quick where they’re resting on the armrail of his bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” he manages to croak out, throat sore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, yourself,” Riley replies, her own voice raspy. Lack of sleep, or crying, or both. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jack?” Mac manages.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley’s face clouds for a moment. “I convinced him it was better if I was the one who talked to you first. He took a lot of convincing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac can’t argue with that. He’s in and out, courtesy of the pain meds and blood loss, and Jack...well...Jack can be scary in silhouette. Mac knows him, but...he’s also never experienced this before, and Riley’s the only one who has a prayer of understanding what he’s been through. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“El Noche?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got surveillance on his car when he left. Tracked him all the way to Mexico. Phoenix Tac scooped his whole operation up yesterday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac sighs in relief, leaning back against the pillows, then wincing. He’s not sure what part of him hurts most. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your test results are in. You’re clean.” She manages a small smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Already?” Mac knows those take a while. “How long was I out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Four days. He hit your spleen. You were touch and go,” Riley says, shivering and rubbing her arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Mac says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What for?” Riley asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bad memories.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who, me?” She’s putting on a brave face. “Mac, if I hadn’t made my peace with the nightmares a long time ago, I wouldn’t still be here. Elwood left me with more scars than that place.” She sighs, and Mac watches her rub her arm, where there’s a neat little right-angled mark, like the corner of some piece of furniture. “I’ve been living on the edge all my life. I know how to deal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mac nods. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m an agent. And I was in the Army. I can handle PTSD.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you’re blaming yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wonders how she could possibly know. Then he remembers her stories, of LaToya and the other women who were locked up for the crimes others had done to them. He’d thought it was terrible then. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Now you’re just looking at it from the other side. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It feels worse than he wants to admit. But still. </span>
  <em>
    <span>They didn’t ask for it, and you did. It’s not the same.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The voice in his head sounds like the father he hasn’t seen in fifteen years. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What he did to you isn’t on you, Mac. None of it is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I asked. I asked for his protection. I knew what he would do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You had a choice between bad and worse.” Riley looks him in the eyes. “It’s not your fault those were your only options.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s so much behind that look that he can’t read. Something of her past, something she hasn’t told them, maybe never will. But he doesn’t feel as alone as he did a moment ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley’s fingers twist into his. “This wasn’t your fault, Mac. Just remember that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s probably going to need a lot of reminding. But right now, right here, he can believe her, for a single split second. And that’s enough for now. </span>
</p>
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